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| Justice Urges Appeals Court to Reverse Order to Release Uighur Detainees |
| 2008-11-26 |
| A Justice Department lawyer urged an appeals court yesterday to overturn a judge's decision to release a group of Chinese Muslims at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay into the United States. Solicitor General Gregory G. Garre contended that U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina had overstepped his authority in ordering the release of the 17 men, all Uighurs, a group that seeks a separate homeland in western China. Garre argued that only the president and Congress have such power. The government "has the authority to hold these men pending resettlement efforts," he told the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, calling Urbina's ruling "an unprecedented order." The government is appealing Urbina's October decision to release the Uighurs, who have been held at the Cuba facility for nearly seven years. The United States no longer considers the men enemy combatants and would like to release them. But it will not send them back to China, where the government considers them terrorists and where they might be tortured or killed, and it has been unable to find another country willing to take them. Albania accepted five Uighurs in 2006, but other countries have refused for fear of offending China. When the government provided no evidence to justify the Uighurs' continued detention, Urbina ordered their transfer on Oct. 7 to the Washington area, where they would have been resettled temporarily with Uighur families. The appeals court stayed Urbina's ruling by a 2-to-1 vote, and it appeared from the questioning of lawyers yesterday that the judges might be inclined to overturn Urbina's decision. Judges A. Raymond Randolph and Karen LeCraft Henderson, appointees of Republican presidents, seemed sympathetic to the government's arguments. Judge Judith W. Rogers, a Clinton appointee, dissented from issuing the stay and appeared more skeptical. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 ...and it has been unable to find another country willing to take them. So many countries of the Religion of Peace(tm), and not one taker to remove them from hands of the oppressive infidel? /sarcasm off |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-11-26 13:46 |
| #1 Force the terrorists to live with the judges who ordered them freed. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2008-11-26 13:32 |